WELCOME to the re-birth of Re:Birth as Essex comedian Russell Brand returns for a second York Barbican performance of his latest tour show on Tuesday, having played there last October.

Brand will be wrestling with three questions – What is real? Who are we? Where did this baby come from? – while unravelling the matrix of modern media, politics, sex, fatherhood and death.

"How do we make sense of the madness of our lives once we become parents?" he asks. "What am I going to tell my daughter about conformity and responsibility? What happens if she grows up to be like me or, worse, date someone like me?"

Since rising to fame in 2003, Brand has toured such vehement stand-up vehicles as Shame in 2006, Only Joking in 2007, Scandalous in 2009 and Messiah Complex in 2013 and 2014, a show that elicited a DVD too. Messiah Complex brought Brand to York Barbican in March 2014, when he discussed his heroes, Jesus Christ, Che Guevara, Gandhi and Malcolm X, amid his traditional material about drug abuse and sexual exploits, on his first visit to the city since a brace of gigs at the Grand Opera House in 2006.

Aside from stand-up, Brand is a broadcaster with a controversial past and an actor on stage and screen, as well as an author, podcaster, columnist, political commentator and mental health and drug rehabilitation activist.

He has been on the road with Re:Birth since last April, visiting every corner of Britain and Ireland by May 31 2018. Tickets for Tuesday's 8pm show are still available at £30.50 on 0844 854, at yorkbarbican.co.uk or in person from the Barbican box office.